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Thursday, August 20, 2015

Top 10 Scariest Aliens

The truth is out there…and it looks terrifying. The concept of alien
life on film is as old as film itself and over the years there have been
many different interpretations of what extra-terrestrials look like,
ranging from the almost-humans to the almost-laughable. But there are
some film- and TV-makers that have really nailed the idea of what makes a
creepy alien, and we’re celebrating their work in our Top 10 Scariest
Aliens.

10. Faceless Aliens

There’s something very creepy about aliens who are like us, but not quite…and these eyeless wonders fit the bill. The faceless aliensof
the “X Files” are rebels who have managed to avoid a virus plaguing the
rest of alienkind. They avoid it mainly through self-mutilation, which
is why they appear to have a few facial features missing in the picture
above. However, happily, they can shape-shift so they aren’t stuck
looking like that – in fact they can pass for humans quite convincingly.
Their humanitarian record isn’t so convincing though, with blemishes
like committing genocide in Kazakhstan and setting fire to large groups
of people at will. Not a race to mess with…

9. Weeping Angels

Ever
get creeped out by statues in old churches? You will after watching
“Blink”, a 2007 episode of Doctor Who featuring the very sinister
Weeping Angels. As “old as the universe itself”, they feed off time
energy, sending their victims back in time rather than killing them,
although they are also capable of snapping someone’s neck without too
much thought. They can’t do anything as long as they are being watched
constantly but you may have guessed the downside to this – if you blink,
they get steadily closer and closer before attacking. The weeping
angels are chilling mainly because of their complete lack of emotion.
They have their statue face and their attack face but their faces are
often covered with their hands (hence the “weeping”). They are
cold-hearted psychopaths who can’t be negotiated with or talked to. They
just hunt and feed and creep up on you in the dark. As I said,
chilling…

8. The Thing

If you’re going to release an alien film, you want to make sure it
doesn’t clash with any other alien based films…and certainly not with
the most loved alien film of all time. Opening just two weeks after “E.T.”,
on June 25th 1982, “The Thing” crashed and burned at the box office but
has since become something of a cult classic. It features a genuinely
scary alien who, like so many of these aliens, can shape shift and
resemble nearby humans. The movie is set in Antarctica, which is a
natural backdrop for sci-fi horror, being weirdly and other-worldy. The
alien spaceship lands and The Thing “assimilates” each one of the humans
living there until no-one can trust anyone else. There’s one
particularly creepy scene where one of the men is trying to revive what
he thinks is his colleague before the man’s chest opens up and bites his
arm off…then The Thing emerges (see above). Scary stuff, and a bleak
ending too.

7. The Sarlacc

It might surprise you to learn that this “Star Wars” alien has changed a
little over the years. Debuting in 1983′s “Return of the Jedi”, the
Sarlacc was a giant hole in the desert with huge, sharp teeth. By 1997′s
re-release it had acquired CGI tentacles and a beak. George Lucasdoes
love a bit of CGI, especially when it comes to retro-fitting it onto
his classic saga. But for the generation who grew up in the 1980s, the
original Sarlacc was scary enough. Living in the Great Pit of Carkoon,
on the desert planet of Tatooine, it appears when Jabba the Hutt is
trying to feed Luke and Han to it. Needless to say, they escape but that
gaping mouth of teeth probably haunted their dreams for weeks
afterwards. And it still haunts the dreams of most 1980s kids today.

6. The Daleks

And talking about things that scared kids in the 80s, here are Doctor Who’s enemies the Daleks. You may wonder what could possibly be so scary
about an upside-down dustbin on wheels that, until recently, couldn’t
even manage a flight of stairs. Well, here it is – it’s the flat,
mechanical tone that tell you there is no hope for mercy with these
creatures…if they want to “exterminate” you, they will. They fire a shot
from their laser, you turn negative and that’s the last time you appear
on the show. They are ruthless killing machines but, despite what most
people think, they are not robots. The dalek is simply an outer casing
for the mutant inside – what used to be a race of near-humans known as
the kaleds but who mutated through exposure to a nuclear war and through
the work of their evil scientist leader Davros. With the kaleds now
cyborgs, and with their pity removed they make a formidable force who
seem impossible to wipe out (the “Time War” was meant to do that but
they insisted on coming back). A good reason to hide behind the sofa.

5. The Blob

Another alien that doesn’t look very threatening – the Blob of the
1958 film of the same name was essentially just a big gelatinous mound
that was scared of the cold. But that mound had a nasty habit of
swallowing people whole – starting with an old man, then a doctor’s
nurse before moving onto the doctor himself. And the more he swallowed,
the bigger and redder he got (thanks to the wonder of 1950s SFX – food
coloring). Some commentators have speculated that the creeping red blob
was meant to represent communism,
and its eventual Arctic exile the Cold War, but it’s more likely that
it was just a fairly silly monster movie. But scary in its own way.

4. The Shadows

A species that’s described as the “ultimate force of evil in the galaxy”
is never going to be friendly and cuddly. But these ghost-like Shadows
from TV series “Babylon 5″ are particularly freaky. Their exoskeleton
looks a bit like a spider, but with only 6 jagged legs, and inside they
are incorporeal beings who keep to the shadows and use stealth as their
main attack weapon. However, their arsenal also included bioengineered
deadly viruses which helped them to eliminate their enemies. They were
eventually expelled from the galaxy but not before they had left a great
deal of death and destruction in their wake. Creepy on every level.

3. The Bodysnatchers

Now, the less intrusive an alien race is, the less scary it is. In TV
shows like “The Event” where aliens have peacefully assimilated into
our society and are working as pilots it’s hard to be too frightened of
them. But when they start blowing up the White House, as in
“Independence Day”, they’re a bit less welcome. And by the time you get
into probing territory, I think we can safely say that’s most people’s
idea of a nightmare. It’s also safe to say that bodysnatching is pretty
intrusive. Starting life as a 1955 novel, the concept of the
Bodysnatchers has made its way into four different films (1956, 1978,
1993, 2007 as “The Invasion“)
and the basic idea is the same each time – the Bodysnatchers find you
sleeping, turn you to dust and replace you with a perfect copy that
they’ve grown themselves. Taking someone’s identity and turning them to
dust as they sleep is pretty personal, isn’t it? That’s why these aliens
are quite so chilling.

2. Predator

We humans might think we have the monopoly on hunting for sport, but
Predator would beg to differ. First appearing in the 1987 film, this
alien finds a planet to play on and proceeds to rip the inhabitants
apart for fun. Starring Arnold Schwartzenegger, it’s not the most
intelligent film but it is a whole lot of gore-packed action and it is a
convincingly scary monster, albeit in an 80s kind of way. It has
spawned two sequels as well as the “Alien vs Predator” franchise, none
of which really flesh out the Predator at all but why mess with a
winning formula?

1. The Alien

And if you were wondering who put the “Alien” into “Alien vs
Predator”, look no further. The stars of Ridley Scott’s 1979 film have
gone on to have a further three films of their own as well as the
crossover franchise (although some fans try to forget that
“Alien:Resurrection” ever happened). It’s also coined its own phrase –
the “face-hugger” – describing the way that the alien latches onto his
prey before bursting out through their chests. It’s scary because of its
seeming invincibility – the “perfect
organism” – as well as the way it quite literally gets inside you. The
first film may start off slowly but there’s plenty of gore to be had
along the way and this alien is not one to be meddled with, as Ripley
herself would tell you. Just don’t bother watching “Alien:Resurrection”.
It’s hard to be scared when you’re too busy laughing at the plot…